Joseph Mercola

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated an already shifting trend toward digital communication technology. With millions of employees mandated to work from home, use of the video conference company Zoom increased 30-fold in April 2020, with more than 300 million daily participants in virtual meetings at its peak. Virtual workspaces have continued to remain popular even as pandemic mandates were lifted, however. From 2020 to 2021, Zoom saw year-over-year revenue growth of 355%, 367% and 369% in the second, third and fourth quarters, respectively.

“Work is no longer a place. It’s a space where Zoom serves to empower your teams to connect and bring their best ideas to life,” Eric S. Yuan, Zoom’s founder and chief executive officer said in an earnings release. But the best ideas, it turns out, may not happen virtually, and the increasing reliance on virtual communication may come with a cognitive cost.